New Delhi is the fastest growing city in India. The urban population of New Delhi clocked over 47% growth in the decade between 1991 and 2001 and continues to grow at over 3% per year. In 1901 the population was only about 400,000 people, today it has hit over 18 million and the increase is not predicted to stop or slow, according to the census of India by 2026 it will reach a high of 28 million people.
The city is extremely over crowded, in 2011 the population density average in India was 382 persons per square kilometer whilst at the same time in New Delhi the average was 11,297 persons per square kilometer
The birth and death rates are both on the decline meaning that the reason for New Delhi’s constant and rapid growth is due to migration. Over 80% of the migration population coming into New Delhi were to work as petty traders or vendors in the city, because of this there is a socio-economic gap between those native to Delhi and those that migrated over, the first being mainly rich or middle class and the latter being the working class and poor.
Less than one-third of India’s population live in cities or towns, however it is the cities that generate over two-thirds of the countries entire income. New Delhi’s population is growing extremely fast due to a large amount of the population living in rural communities opting to migrate to larger cities. Workers are opting for jobs in urban areas over rural areas as they produce higher wages. New Delhi being the countries capital and one of the largest cities has the highest rate of migrants in the Country.
City Development Plan of Delhi, 2006, IL & FS Ecosmart Limited, New Delhi.
Kwatra, S, Kumar, A, Sharma, P, Sharma, S, Singhal, S, 2015, ‘Benchmarking Sustainability Using Indicators’ Ecological Indicators, Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 928-940.
Public Housing 